Classroom Strategies

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Brain Difference
 Benefit it presents
 Challenge it presents
 Ideas for greater classroom success
 Connections to strategies in the blue book
Corpus Callosum
 When male brain is larger than normal - allows for more cross talk between hemispheres & more emotional processing; boys may be able to focus longer at one task, rathern than moving quickly through multiple tasks.
 1. Difficulty multitasking
2. Students with ADHD - atrophied corpus callosum makes multitasking & learning even more difficult
3. Assignments are often multi-faceted
 1. Music helps improve cross-talk between hemispheres (among other cross-hemisphere activities)
2. Give multistep directions one at a time
3. Provide transition time between activities
Hippocampus
 Can provide specific, strategic methods for memorizing
 Students (boys) need more time to memorize
 Boys need a list organization with categories when greater amounts of info are involved
 1. Pass It Back Review - p. 23 - create lists of info for review
2. Use movement to promote memory - p. 37
Rest State
 Recharging/reset brain; able to "unplug" and rest; ability to "let things go"
 Boys drift off without completing assignments, stop taking notes, or fall asleep, tap pencils, or fidget
 Offer short time out breaks
 1. Ideas Jar - p. 19
2. Transition strategies
Compartmentalizer
 Able to focus for long periods on one task
 1. Boys tend to be less successful moving quickly from task to task
2. Overstimulation can be displayed in anger and frustration
3. Can potentially create more discipline issues
4. They are structured to learn with less multi-tasking
 1. Fewer transitions
2. Depth instead of breadth
 1. Choice in assignments/projects
2. Sufficient time to deeply experience, comprehend, share learning
Broca/Warnicke's Area
 Healthy emotional detatchment; learning in "innovative and risk-taking ways"; ability to refresh
 1. Classrooms tend to be more verbal; also spend large amounts of time asking students to reflect and/or make personal connections to learning
2. Boys enter school significantly behind female counterparts in terms of language and verbal expression
3. The female brain uses more neural pathways and brain centers for word production and expression of experience, emotion and cognition through words
 Less verbal - seek more non-verbal opportunities for males:
1. movement
2. non-linguistic representations
 1. Use boys own words to go step by step
2. Chapter 2 - mazimizing the brain-body connection
Estrogen & Oxytocin
 Estrogen - direct impact on the use of words (girls have more)
Oxytocin - rises when girls communicate verbally
Boys tend to do well with and need competition
 Boys have more testosterone than estrogen - results in difficulty producing/engaging in tasks that require the use of words
Boys with less oxytocin & less verbal emphasis in the brain - results in less verbal engagement
 Healthy competition
Peer connection, group activities
Frontal Lobes
 Girls tend to make less impulsive executive decisions than boys
 Impulsivity used to be more useful and desirable in learning - especially when children did more of their learning outdoors and independently
 Provide an atmosphere where students feel safe and comfortable taking risks.
Choice Boards - choice promotes learning
 Choice Boards - p. 72
Novel analysis - p. 73
Neural Connectors
 Boys generally pick up less of what is actually going on around them
 1. Possible problems with written expression
2. Boys are not the best listeners and need more sensory-tactile experiences
 Differentiate learning experiences
 1. Learning Centers - p. 72
2. Choice boards - p. 72
Occipital & Parietal Lobe
 Males have better spatial intelligence & calculate easier
 Males need to be visually stimulates
 1. Less words, more graphic organizers & diagrams
2. Allow movement
 1. Playbook about students (knowing them) - pp. 42-43
2. Graphic organizers, technology, manipulatives
Dopamine
 Risk takers - try new things
Boys (as well as girls with higher doapamine-cerebellum functioning) will attach their learning to physical movement.
 1. Learn less well when sedentary
2. Impulsiveness
 1. Allowing & encouraging movement in the classroom
2. Providing students with "props" to keep the mind engaged during more verbal movement
 1. Ball toss review - p. 28
2. Vote with feet - p. 29
3. Word charades - p. 30